Bennington Young Writer's Awards Entry, 2024.

In the garden of the divine, the air is heavy with passion. Dragonflies whizz by and if you look close enough you can see the butterflies close their eyes, and the benches are made of stones so unique the geeks would lose their minds. In the garden of the divine, the word derogatory does not just exist, it laughs mockingly at human existence every single chance it gets. 

It is empty too; mostly that is. 

Gods occasionally escape to the mortal realm, venture into the underworld, and sip on ethereal elixirs amidst the clouds. They luxuriate in the sun's embrace, sea-salt drying upon their skin as they taste the iron tang of mortal blood, familiar yet foreign, reminiscent of their own scented gold that courses through their veins. For the woman, immersed in the garden's enigmatic allure, the question of cleansing her being of its crimson stain and peculiar stench does not arise. The blood, dry and gory, clings to her skin with a desperate tenacity, the same desperation with which she bites into the piece of undercooked meat with. Cold blood pooling around her lips, dripping off of her chin tracing paths like melted candle wax down its own body.

To desire is to court condemnation — a glutton, she is labelled. A filthy little glutton. There is nothing little about her, however. Her ample form draped in rolls of flesh that cascade over her waist, her teeth stained with the remnants of her indulgence. The once vibrant pink of her nail polish now a faded memory, chipped away with each passing day. Yet, as she meets the gaze of a child with unyielding shame burning upon her cheeks, the child remains unperturbed. Nibbling on the smallest apple her eye could find, neither terrorised nor curious by the clearly lunatic woman in front of her, but simply nonchalant as if she had grown up with the vision.

There is muck underneath the woman’s toenails and the child watches herself in the mirror behind the woman. Biting into the apple with utmost deliberation to avoid the juice dripping down her face the way blood drips down the chin of the one in front of her, she envisions herself in a pink dress akin to those of Disney princesses. The Sven is a perfect match with the verdant canopy of trees above them laden with sweet-scented fruit, white flowers dance on the breeze, and the grass caresses her bare feet. She absorbs every detail of their surroundings-lush greens, vibrant reds, the pallid hue of human flesh, and the purity of lily-white doves alongside sky-blue birds.

Meanwhile, the woman remains ensnared by the brown-eyed gaze, oblivious to the symphony of nature unfolding around them as her teeth tear through cubes of soft cheese and juicy plums. The brown eyes watch as the sticky red that coats her breasts dries to a brown substance, clinging to her skin resembling a newborn. A vulture flies with an eagle in tow by their side.

Sticky honey clings to the woman's facial hair, mirroring the residue of blood, prompting the child to ponder whether divine sustenance shares a similar indulgence, after all, it has to keep the Gods alive forever.

Her fingers pick up the recently thawed mass of bacon and a piece of grilled chicken breast. She inhales it, smushes her nose into the meat, her mouth already chewing the other half, eyes closed finding momentary solace in the sensory overload. The child watches, bored. 

With bottles of scotch and wine still at hand, as the woman revels in her repast, the child, seeking her own communion, reaches for the last bottle of bourbon and chugs its amber liquid.

As the child's gaze ascends to the ethereal expanse of cloud-kissed skies, her perception wavers, the woman's form receding into a distant haze, though her essence lingers palpably. She knows it's there, she knows the stench of blood and rotten fruit, she knows that the desire is burning bright but the golden liquid dims down the sight and she wonders, as she sways a little, if she has enough of the liquid will she be able to ignore her body all together and fly in the sky, to soar amidst the heavens like a fairy or a wisp of cloud?

The woman savours the chewy sweetness of Turkish delight, its powdery residue clinging tenaciously to her slick, sweat-drenched skin, tinged with the hue of dried blood. With a languid sigh of contentment, she surveys the celestial canopy and verdant foliage before indulging in yet another morsel.

Bite. Chew. Swallow. 

                     [gulp]                          [gulp]

Observing the mound of shattered bottles beneath her bare feet, the girl offers a silent apology to their fractured forms. She explains to them without a word that if the woman were to see herself again, in the reflection of one of those bottles she’d retch it all out and lie again, for hours amid her own filth, building courage to start again. 

The broken bottles of glass do not reply 

In the divine garden, where the sun's departure is fleeting and its return ephemeral, the nearby lake shimmers beneath the gentle moon's caress, a cleansing balm for the tumultuous passions that accompany the sun's fiery ascent.

“I read Rosemary’s Baby last week,” the child murmurs, her voice as delicate as her flesh appears. The woman's response- a gurgle, ambiguous in its origin, be it blood or pomegranate juice- prompts the child's contemplation. Does divinity taste akin to a rotten pomegranate, its seeds promising succulent indulgence only to yield bitter disappointment and yet you can not stop? An insatiable craving that defies satisfaction? And then an accusation: “The woman eating alone seemed weirder than her husband being in a cult. It makes sense why you never let us eat alone. We had to starve when we had no friends. Are you making up for that now?”

“Quiet,” She spits out the word and grabs another apple, biting into it as she turns to view herself in the mirror behind her. Body naked, eyes fresh and raw, open down to their very core and she watches as her desire turns to disgust, as her desire fights to stay, and as disgust wins. 

And then the bile rises, acrid on her tongue, precipitating a cascade of vomit- dark red, golden, and sticky- a grotesque expulsion. She does not stop and the food that entered leaves her body imitating a patriarch as he walks away from the little child born out of wedlock. Illegitimate. A symbol of shameful desire. Of lust. 

                                                 Of a glutton. 

Her fingers sink into the flesh of the apple, the juice staining her strained fingertips as she stares disgusted at her hunger. A hungry woman is a thing of mockery for the only thing her meal will fulfil is herself and when did a woman truly start being a human being? That is a privilege reserved solely for her husband or her brother. A god eats its sacrifices as quickly as a woman eats the leftover morsels of food, as minimal as she can be for society burns witches and she knows too well that her body does not elongate at its centre, that she is destined to die.  

Girlhood and Godhood, what is the difference? A beg for acknowledgement, a haze of magical glory tainted by violence and rumours that become legends and stories. What is the difference? 

She wipes her mouth, tears stinging her flushed cheeks, her visage a canvas of shame and revulsion, the heat of her emotions eclipsing even the feverish fervour of her desire. Through tear-streaked eyes, she gazes upon the child in the mirror, their shared features a proof of  their intertwined fates- the same hair, the same eyes, the same mole and the same insignificant little toe.

Somewhere from the trees the scent of  Bacchanal wine wafts through accompanied by faint echoes of whistles. The woman’s chest heaves. 

The child bites into her apple once again and sighs.